by George Freeman

10 years ago the UK was home to one of the great breakthroughs in the story of mankind. The first human genome was sequenced – at the Sanger Centre a mile to the South of Cambridge. The ‘code of life’ – the sequence of DNA embedded in the nucleus of every human cell which codes for the proteins which assemble and control every function of the human body, was mapped for the first time.

It took £100,000,000 and over ten years of focused scientific effort. Today the explosive breakthroughs in genetics and computing make it possible to achieve the same with £1000 in 24 hours. Now clinics are appearing around the world offering personalized cancer therapy – with drugs tailored to your specific disease and condition.

When Angelina Jolie bravely announced that she had a double mastectomy last month, she revealed that it was these breakthroughs in genetic science that not only identified that she was at high risk of having breast cancer, but empowered her to make this very personal decision. We need to ensure that these medical breakthroughs are available to all patients.

The Government is onto this exciting new dawn of genetic medicine and through the Life Science Strategy and its £100m Cancer Genomics Project is heralding a revolution in genetic and personalised medicine that will define diagnosis, treatment and aftercare in the 21st Century. As Government Life Science Adviser, and having spent 15 years in biomedical research before becoming a newly elected MP in 2010, I have seen for myself the astonishing revolution occurring in medical research, and the exciting opportunity it opens up for patients.

But, at the heart of this revolution, there are some important questions about the rights of patients that must be addressed. There are many ethical and philosophical complexities that require discussion and debate, including who owns the rights to genetic and clinical data; who has the right to be tested; and how we can open the NHS to allow greater access to the type of medical breakthroughs that will fundamentally change the way we treat illness and disease in our society.

It is these questions that have led me to secure an Adjournment Debate on Genetic Medicine and Patients’ Rights on Thursday 13th June, not only raise awareness of these advances in Parliament, but hopefully to the wider public.

This is the new frontier of medicine, one that will fundamentally change healthcare in the UK, not only for the NHS and UK plc, but most importantly of all, patients.

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